Singapore Ecosystem – Aug 2015

After the first edition one year ago of the Singapore Startup Ecosystem & Entrepreneur Toolbox with more than 25,000+ views, I have the pleasure to share the second edition:

Some of the findings include:

1. Accelerators

Huge increase in terms of new accelerators in Singapore with the launch of at least 10 new identities. We can see few trends, the first one is that most of them are going deep in a vertical like in FinTech for StartupBootcamp Fintech, The Co-Foundry, InspirAsia or in Media for SPH & Plug and Play and The Mediapreneurs whereas Muru-d and Rockstart are generalist like JFDI. A second trend is to have more and more corporate accelerators like The Mediapreneurs (Mediacorp), Startup Focus (SAP), Muru-d (Telstra) or Unilever Foundry (Unilever). In a nutshell, SPH Plug & Play Accelerator follow these two trends.

2. Corporates

The usual suspects like Singtel, Microsoft and Google are working with startups but there is also banks (DBS and UBS), food and beverages (Unilever and P&G) that are looking to work more and more with startups.

3. Exits

In the last 10 years, 42 Singapore-based startups have been acquired for USD 529.3 million. The average exit was USD 40.7 million.

In terms of industry, software (30%), media (16%) and marketplace (12%) are the main ones. Last but not least acquirers are mostly from United States (30%) and Singapore (23%).

4. Emergence of Fintech

Two new accelerators in Fintech: StartupBootcamp Fintech & InspirAsia, one association: The Singapore FintechConsortium and banks like DBS are more and more active in the startup ecosystem.

5. We don’t have the Paypal Mafia, but…

There is an impressive number of startups created by alumni of INSEAD, or NOC (NUS Overseas Colleges), and some of them have 2-3 co-founders from the same school like Carousell, Ecosoftt, Healint, Redmart, Tabsquare and Zopim.